Category: Atrocity, from Wikidata’s classes “mass murder”, “massacre”
Sinjar massacre
Part of: Iraqi Civil War of 2014–2017, Yazidi genocide
Wikidata classes on our event-class list: mass murder, massacre (all its classes: Wikidata item)
The Sinjar massacre (Kurdish: Fermana Şingalê or Komkujiya Şingalê) marked the beginning of the genocide of Yazidis by ISIL, the killing and abduction of thousands of Yazidi men, women and children. It took place in August 2014 in Sinjar city and Sinjar District in Iraq's Nineveh Governorate and was perpetrated by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). The massacre began after the Peshmerga abandoned Sinjar without warning, after which ISIL attacked and captured Sinjar and neighboring towns on 3 August, during its Northern Iraq offensive.
On 8 August 2014, the United States and the United Kingdom responded with airstrikes on ISIL units and convoys in northern Iraq, which led to a military intervention from several countries against ISIL.
On 17 December 2014, the Kurdish Peshmerga, PKK and YPG forces started the December 2014 Sinjar offensive with the support of US and British airstrikes. This offensive broke ISIL's troop transport routes and supply lines between Mosul and Raqqa, the largest cities in the hands of ISIL at the time.
According to Noori Abdulrahman, the head of the Department of Coordination and Follow-up of the Kurdistan Regional Government, ISIL wanted to push most of the Kurds out of strategic areas and bring in Arabs who were obedient to ISIL.
Text retrieved 2026-09-26 from Wikipedia.
Cite this
The link is the Wikipedia revision of September 3, 2026 (revision 1373071764), whose lead is exactly the text shown here.
APA 7
Sinjar massacre. (2026, September 3). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sinjar_massacre&oldid=1373071764
MLA 9
“Sinjar massacre.” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 3 Sept. 2026, en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sinjar_massacre&oldid=1373071764.
Chicago (note)
Wikipedia, “Sinjar massacre,” last modified September 3, 2026, 22:15 (UTC), https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sinjar_massacre&oldid=1373071764.
Chicago (shortened note)
Wikipedia, “Sinjar massacre.”
Chicago cites well-known reference works such as Wikipedia in notes only, not in the bibliography.
This event on Middle East, 1900–present: https://middleeast.events/event/sinjar-massacre
If you use the map’s borders: CShapes 2.0 - historical country borders. Schvitz, G., et al. (2022). CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. https://icr.ethz.ch/data/cshapes/ (modified by middleeast.events); West Bank Areas A/B/C: UN OCHA / HDX "Oslo Agreement" Areas A/B/C (West Bank). Distributed under the legacy HumanitarianResponse.info terms: non-commercial use with credit to UN OCHA. https://data.humdata.org/dataset/state-of-palestine-other-0-0-0-0-0; some corrected border points: GeoNames - CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). https://www.geonames.org/
Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 by Wikipedia contributors, from the article Sinjar massacre. Classes are Wikidata’s labels (CC0). “Part of” is Wikidata’s statement, in its labels (CC0).